Chris Gabehart responds to JGR restraining order accusation

On Monday night, Joe Gibbs Racing submitted to the Western District of North Carolina photographs from over the weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway that accused Chris Gabehart of violating a temporary restraining order.

Specifically, as part of the lawsuit from JGR that alleges a ‘brazen scheme’ from Gabehart to steal and potentially share proprietary information in violation of a non-compete period around taking the Chief Motorsports Officer job at Spire Motorsports, Judge Susan Rodriguez placed a ‘TRO’ on the former crew chief and engineer.

The TRO allows Gabehart to work at Spire but not perform any duties that overlaps with his previous role as competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing. This is a temporary measure to allow Gabehart to make a living while also allowing the parties time to reach either a settlement or a trial this November.

Since the order was issued, Gabehart has continued to attend Cup Series races, and JGR appears to have him under surveillance at all times to produce legal filings like the one produced on Monday night.

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In response, both Gabehart and his legal team issued responses that asked the court to disregard it.

“It is an improper attempt to introduce surveillance photos as evidence outside the briefing schedule. Unable to substantiate its claims, JGR has resorted to stalking Mr. Gabehart at racetracks, then rushing to this Court to spin routine behavior into suggested misconduct. The Court should give this filing no weight.”

As has been the argument all along, Gabehart and his legal team, plus those representing Spire, say that Matt McCall is the competition director at Spire Motorsports so there is no reason for anyone else to perform those duties.

“Mr. Gabehart’s role as Chief Motorsports Officer is fundamentally different in scope, seniority, and focus—a distinction the record already establishes. Mr. Gabehart’s presence on race day is entirely consistent with his role as CMO and commonplace for executive-level employees like him.”

The legal team also referenced the recent hire last week from LEGACY Motor Club of former JGR COO Michael Gutilla as president.

“The organizational charts submitted in this litigation confirm that Mr. Guttilla served in the role directly above Mr. Gabehart at JGR, meaning that Mr. Guttilla had at least equal, and likely greater, access to JGR’s confidential competitive information than Mr. Gabehart. See ECF 38, Ex. B. JGR evidently did not view its confidential information as sensitive enough to prevent—or even protest—Mr. Guttilla’s mid-season move to a direct competitor, which undermines JGR’s claim that Mr. Gabehart poses some unique threat to JGR’s competitive interests.”

The obvious rebuttal, of course, is that both JGR and LEGACY are tier one Toyota Racing North America teams with access to the same data, as to where Spire is a Chevrolet team. Legacy also stated in its hiring press release that the hiring came in collaboration with Gibbs.

The below section is taken directly from the Legacy press release.

Principals at Joe Gibbs Racing worked collaboratively with ownership at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB to facilitate the move, with full support from both organizations.

“We really appreciate Michael’s guidance and leadership over the past few years,” said Joe Gibbs, owner and founder of Joe Gibbs Racing. “We are happy that he will be able to continue to contribute to the Toyota family in his new position.”

Gabehart responds personally

Gabehart wrote in his own declaration, like he did after similar allegations were made following the race weekend at Darlington Raceway, that his radio did not have a speaker and that he was not performing competition director duties at Bristol.

Instead, his role over the weekend was similar to one by Joe Gibbs himself or even a Jeff Gordon, who is Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman, who wears a headset and sits in on meetings at the track.

“My use of radio equipment and proximity to Spire personnel at Bristol was entirely routine. Hundreds of individuals at NASCAR Cup Series events—including owners, executives, sponsor representatives, and administrative personnel—commonly wear radios when Cup cars are on track and stand in similar proximity to their teams. This is true for executives at JGR, including Coach Gibbs and Dave Alpern, among others, who based off my experience regularly use radio equipment at races.

“The radios allow team personnel to listen to the team radio traffic to monitor team performance. The driver, crew chief and spotter are the ones communicating over the radio on competition matters. I did not. As the photographs indicate, I only wore earbuds with no microphone and therefore had no way to communicate via the radio, I could just listen to the radio traffic. Accordingly, I did not discuss any competition-related issues on the radio.

“As Chief Motorsports Officer, my presence near Spire’s race car drivers is a natural and expected part of my executive oversight responsibilities. I was not performing any services in a Competition Director-type role at Bristol.”

Gabehart also addressed each submitted photograph individually.

“Two photos in particular illustrate the silliness of JGR’s spies taking pictures so my replacement, Mr. (Wally) Brown, can speak out under oath about what JGR’s lawyers want the Court to believe I was doing.”

“I was looking up at the speedway’s Jumbotron watching television coverage of qualifying.”

“I was watching two monitors mounted on a cart: one showing the live TV broadcast of practice and the other showing the real-time ranking order of the teams and drivers in the practice session and their corresponding lap times. Again, despite Mr. Brown’s speculation under oath, I was not performing any services in a Competition Director-type role at Bristol.”

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